No, I don't think that's an implicit assumption in my statement at all. You could analyze it on a wing-by-wing basis, especially since the wings are gated ("Hey Bob, LFR wing 1 just came out, want to run it with us?" ; "Sorry, can't, I might be doing Flex wing 1 with my raid group on Friday").

The moment you don't have that assumption, the entire scenario of 'get in the way of having fun' breaks down though, hence everything else following that quote.

Not unless putting together a Flex pug is faster than queuing for LFR. If a handful of friends want to queue up for LFR and invite you along, they're probably not interested in organizing a PuG just because you don't want to lose your loot lockout.

Flex IS meant to be easy/quick to find. That's a compound of server merges (Virtual Realms) as well as the promotion of the community aspect of the game through Flex, as well as whatever they're discussing with making cross-realm groups easier to find and put together.

The entire idea of the lockouts not being a problem seems to hang on that "You can just as easily jump into Flex, rather than LFR." If that were true, there would be no point in having Flex, as it would more or less be an LFR2.

That's cause you are overestimating the average skill of WoW players Tera.

Something that for you is a joke, like LFR durumu, or LFR lei shen, or similar encounters in the past, for the average wow player is "too hard and should be nerfed", and they usually complained so much that they did get nerfed to a retard-proof version.

theckhd wrote:Fuck no, we've seen what you do to guilds. Just imagine what you could do to an entire country. Just visiting the US might be enough to make the southern states try to secede again.

halabar wrote:Noo.. you don't realize the problem. Worldie was to negative guild breaking energy like Bolvar is to the Scourge. If Worldie is removed, than someone must pick up that mantle, otherwise that negative guild breaking energy will run rampant, destroying all the servers.

Teranoid wrote:I still don't understand how you think a raid that falls between LFR and Normal is going to have any semblance of actual difficulty but hey that's also probably why this thread is reaching 40 pages.

The thing is, if it doesn't have any semblance of actual difficulty, wouldn't it just be a 2nd LFR? They could chance LFR to scale with players, so that if you queue for LFR with 10+ players, you get your own LFR, rather than it getting filled up to 25 players.

Instead, they're putting it up as a second difficulty, and since LFR is already the "retard proof zero challenge" version, Flex needs some challenge.

If you run an Ironman challenge every week (after doing a warmup marathon the first week of the season), of course you can't see that there is room for a difficulty between the 10km weekly running route and a halfmarathon - both are equally easy to you (you did a full marathon just to warm up). However if you can' manage to run that full marathon each week (you know, your warmup), then there is definately room for a half marathon, despite there also being a 10 km run.

Also, that half marathon can be quite challenging to someone who only does the 10km run previously, especially if you have to participate in or actually go look for a route for the halfmarathon, instead of just jumping in on the established route for the 10k (you just have to wait for a run to get started).

I can't help thinking the ilvls are all wrong. For people with heroic content on farm for a while wont care much about it.

It's the guilds that were only partially cleared on heroic or the new members of established teams that I feel sorry for, they will get forced to run all.

When we trial people we expect them to show motivation to the teams progression and that includes gearing up outside raids. If they don't run all content, it will be hard not to question motivation. Which would be unfair on them but hard not too feel that, if they are holding you back by poor output from gear.

I have to shine the light inward sthere stevos. If that is what you are expecting, you should take a look at what your expectations do (and whether they are beneficial in the first place) to applicatns, but also the raid team.

I get the "this trinket/weapon/X is so OP that even a lower ilvl version is better than your current higher ilvl X" running. But expecting people to gear up outside raids (what is that btw? LFR is a raid too, and the only one you can reasonably expect people to have acces to while not in a raidgroup) isn't necessarily a sign of commitment (besides the point of it tiring out people).

I must say my guild views people in the same light, if you're applying you'll have need to have made all the effort you can. The fact that scenario's/rep/crafting provide better gear than lfr atm anyway usually means that lfr level gear wouldn't be considered appropriate.

Nooska wrote:I get the "this trinket/weapon/X is so OP that even a lower ilvl version is better than your current higher ilvl X" running. But expecting people to gear up outside raids (what is that btw? LFR is a raid too, and the only one you can reasonably expect people to have acces to while not in a raidgroup) isn't necessarily a sign of commitment (besides the point of it tiring out people).

Gearing up outside of raids means gearing up outside of the guild-run raids. That's valor capping, running LFR or any other level of raiding that the guild isn't running, getting crafted gear, getting rep gear - basically using your free time to gear your toon as well as you possibly can in order to maximize your potential.

Reputations and LFR clears are commonly looked at for applicants to progression raiding guilds in addition to gear, because they are indicators of work done outside of raids. If you are in such a guild, you are expected to do what you can to maximize your performance. You should have capped professions, maxed reputations, multiple LFR clears, etc. that show you don't just log in to raid then play alts the rest of the week.

When Flex comes in, if the progression guild is only running a norm/heroic raid, then you are expected to run the LFR and Felx version in order to get the gear to maximize your performance in the guild raid.

See thats the disconnect.How can you expect people to run organized raids outside the organized raids?Flex is not something you simply jump in to.It may be that flex PUGs become normal, but expecting everyone to have access to a flex PUG is back into teh unreasonable territory.

Also, I get the "show commitment" thing, but realistically, running LFR or not won't make any measurable impact on the performance of an applicant, since the chance of useful gear is rather low anyway.

I do get the drive to do so, and I do get the psychological fallacies that make "us" expect other people to do so, but I maintain that the issue t here is inwards, not outwards.

Nooska wrote:See thats the disconnect.How can you expect people to run organized raids outside the organized raids?Flex is not something you simply jump in to.It may be that flex PUGs become normal, but expecting everyone to have access to a flex PUG is back into teh unreasonable territory.

Also, I get the "show commitment" thing, but realistically, running LFR or not won't make any measurable impact on the performance of an applicant, since the chance of useful gear is rather low anyway.

I do get the drive to do so, and I do get the psychological fallacies that make "us" expect other people to do so, but I maintain that the issue t here is inwards, not outwards.

Well, this is where we fundamentally disagree. I think there will be tons of opportunities to run Flex based on guilds propping up numbers, merged realms, PuGs, and the like, whereas you see it as something that must be scheduled and organised.

People PuG norm modes now, so the idea that Flex would be too hard to PuG is just silly.

Thels wrote:If you could PuG normal on your main next to the guild run, would you expect people to pug normal in addition to the guild run for the extra gear?

No, because Real Life > WoW Raids

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

Thels wrote:If you could PuG normal on your main next to the guild run, would you expect people to pug normal in addition to the guild run for the extra gear?

I wouldn't expect it because I lead a norm-mode raid for a largely social guild.

If I was a leading a progression raid, I wouldn't expect it of people per se, but the people who did would stand out by having superior gear, better understanding of the mechanics, and therefore probably superior performance, so I would be selecting them over the people who wouldn't run it.

We can all be as nice as we want, but the reality of progression raiding is that performance kills bosses.

In the next patch, people who run LFR and Flex in addition to the guild raid will be sat less than people who don't, because the people who run the additional content will be better prepared for the guild's main content. They will have better gear, and know the mechanics better.

We'll be running Flex primarily as a guild, but will also be running a norm-mode raid. The people I select for the norm-mode raid will be the best performers from the Flex raid who can make the time slot. Flex will be for the people who want to show up on raid night missing enchants, who don't use potions, have sub-optimal spec and rotation, etc. while the norm mode will be for the people who take their preparation a bit more seriously.

Any of you who lead raids, be honest - you'd do the same. It sucks to spend weeks wiping on a boss because you have people who perform poorly or simply can't execute a strategy. If you can give them a chance to raid AND remove them as obstacles from the norm raid, wouldn't you jump at the chance?

I don't lead raids anymore (I flat out refuse), but I wouldn't simply sit someone who was a poor performer and/or couldn't execute a strategy until I knew why. I always tried to do it on a case by case basis (and in some cases, I even tried to sit myself because I knew I had problems). Some of the worst performers became the best simply by figuring out why they were performing poorly. Some of the best executers - in theory - were subpar because their machines couldn't handle the clusterfuck that is ground effects regardless of level.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

Amirya wrote:I don't lead raids anymore (I flat out refuse), but I wouldn't simply sit someone who was a poor performer and/or couldn't execute a strategy until I knew why. I always tried to do it on a case by case basis (and in some cases, I even tried to sit myself because I knew I had problems). Some of the worst performers became the best simply by figuring out why they were performing poorly. Some of the best executers - in theory - were subpar because their machines couldn't handle the clusterfuck that is ground effects regardless of level.

I've been raiding with most of these people since Lich King. I have a pretty good handle on who has what issue, who is going to turn into a spirit healer in about 25 seconds, who is going to show up without enchants, who doesn't ever use potions, who doesn't buy valor gear, etc. I've been down the path of "hey, our other person of your class and spec (who doubles your output) uses this spell but you don't - have you considered trying it?".

But having led raids on various levels since BC, I've come to the conclusion that it's not my problem. They need to get their own act together.

With Flex, I can give everyone raid time, then cherry-pick my 10N group from the people who perform the best. Really looking forward to that.

This is true, and also reflects a difference in raid style. Once Cataclysm hit, it didn't just affect Azeroth, it also hit the guild pretty hard. People decided to go to school, have kids, quit jobs and disappear into the ether, faction change, server ninja, and whatever else. Our current guildmaster has seriously been considering moving the guild to a different server, even if he has to pay for the character transfers for some of the steadiest players.

In theory, though, if my group were as steadfast as you, I am with you all the way.

Fetzie wrote:The Defias Brotherhood is back, and this time they are acting as racketeers in Goldshire. Anybody wishing to dance for money must now pay them protection money or be charged triple the normal amount when repairing.

He'll be dead in week one on normal, i can't remember the reason they gave before for the slow release schedule. If people were considering re-subbing due to the introduction of flex this may slow their return somewhat. Obviously in the long term the impact is probably negligible.

i used to have first nights dedicated to roster rotation, and the last nights for "best" player

i'm gonna apply same philosophie with flex/nm*

someone who doesn't have time to improve his characters should be happy to have a guarantee slot in Flex raid. Up to him to demonstrate he can contribute enough to be then also considered for the Normal raid he has no pression to do it if the flex progression is fine for him